


Good Instincts

by FictionPenned



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alex asked why we even have this lever, Disguise, Flirting, Other, ThoscheiLockdown2020, Undercover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:27:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23233213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: “Welcome to the party, O. Not much to look at, I’m afraid. Trying to route around a failed converter. Going to replace the old one at some point, but TARDIS parts are hard to come by these days, and I’m not about to make you lot crawl around a junk planet. That ended horribly the last time. Still need to apologize to the fam for that one. Haven’t yet. Bad at apologies these days.” The Doctor doesn’t meet his gaze, however, she runs her mouth at an uncontrollable pace. He wonders if he makes her nervous. It’s a satisfying thought.In pursuit of a long con, the Master has been travelling undercover with the Doctor as O for weeks. They have a chat in one of the TARDIS' engine rooms.Response to the prompt "13 tinkering/diy-ing" for Thoschei Lockdown Exchange 2020
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 88
Collections: Thoschei Lockdown The First 2020





	Good Instincts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunmjau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunmjau/gifts).



The secondary engine room is difficult to find. When starting in the console room, one has to first cut through the library, take a left turn at the swimming pool, go down a wrought iron spiral staircase that leads to an equally foreboding door, walk through four adjoining bedrooms of increasingly garish decor, and then hop down a trapdoor. Most TARDISes are more intuitively designed than this one, but O suspects that this is what one ought to expect from a Type 40 that should have been retired  _ well _ over a millennia ago and had the great misfortune of imprinting on a pilot as disastrous as the Doctor. He is amazed that she has kept the thing operational for this long, given how many times she failed her exams.    
  
A wall of hot air smacks O in the face as soon as he opens the door, and he hesitates for a moment as he decides whether or not to enter. He knows she’s here. He can sense her presence in the buzz of his hearts, the whisper against his skin, and the nagging at the back of his mind. Time Lords have always been able to sense other Time Lords, however, the Doctor has always been  _ exceptionally _ bad at identifying him whenever he switches faces. After all, despite the amount of time he has spent tagging along on her little travels, she is still clinging to the delusion that he’s human. He wonders if she’s been alone for so long that she has forgotten what it’s like to be around their people, or if it is yet another side effect of the fact that she was never really one of them.    
  
“O! Just in time. Do you mind tossing me a spanner? It’s right over there.” The voice rises from somewhere beneath an engine, and if he leans over and tilts his head, he can see her booted feet poking out at odd angles and a single hand raised to gesture in a vaguely correct direction. However, the rest of her is nowhere to be seen, which means she did not see him enter and cannot see her now.    
  
A mischievous smile tugs at his lips as he crosses to the pile of tools and frees the requested spanner. “How’d you know it was me?”   
  
“Had a feeling. The others keep themselves a bit busy, don’t they?”    
  
_ A  feeling _ _, indeed_. 

Smirk lingering, O deposits the tool in the Doctor’s expectant hand, and it quickly disappears again. “Do you mind if I join you?”    
  
“Don’t see why you’d want to. Bit grimy under here, but I suppose you can fit if you’re willing to wiggle a bit.” Though he cannot see it, he can practically hear the thoughtful scrunch of her nose as she answers his question. 

It takes a few moments of awkwardly negotiating himself between the warm metal of the ship and the soft press of her body before he manages to settle in beside her. He’s propped on an elbow, observant gaze absorbing the sweat that shines on her forehead and the little divots in her skin that recall the recent pressure of her goggles.    
  
“Welcome to the party, O. Not much to look at, I’m afraid. Trying to route around a failed converter. Going to replace the old one at some point, but TARDIS parts are hard to come by these days, and I’m not about to make you lot crawl around a junk planet. That ended horribly the last time. Still need to apologize to the fam for that one. Haven’t yet. Bad at apologies these days.” The Doctor doesn’t meet his gaze, however, she runs her mouth at an uncontrollable pace. He wonders if he makes her nervous. It’s a satisfying thought.   
  
O cranes his neck slightly as he attempts to follow her line of sight. If she is, in fact, trying to bypass a converter, she’s going about it all wrong. “Mind you, I don’t know much about space ships, nonetheless time ships, but have you considered fiddling about with that bit over there instead? Can’t say where it’s coming from or what it is, but I have a good  _ feeling _ about it.” He lingers on the word ‘feeling’ with ever so subtle mocking.    
  
The Doctor’s brow creases in confusion as she glances over at him. “No, I --” The thought hits a dead stop, mouth frozen slightly open as she is forced to reconsider her initial dismissal of the idea. “...Actually, that might make a bit easier. Avoids a problem I was set to run into in an hour. How’d you figure that? You sweep up a Type 40 manual somewhere in your files?” Her eyes narrow slightly as she scrutinizes his expression. Weeks of dropping subtle hints and she’s  _ finally _ suspicious. He doubts that it will last long or amount to much, but it’s a start.    
  
A small shrug lifts his shoulders. “My mother used to say that I was a  _ master _ of instinct.”    
  
Suspicion falls away, and a grin slips across her lips with easy grace, as bright as a thousand suns. “I like your instincts, O.”   
  
“Figured you wouldn’t have signed your texts with kisses if you didn’t.” He enjoys this little game. The taunts, the attention, exploiting centuries upon centuries of knowledge to build a persona that would capture the Doctor’s interest in more ways than one.    
  
A flush spreads up her neck and across her cheeks as she averts her gaze. “Probably right. Should I stop doing that? Does it bother you? I can stop.”   
  
“On the contrary, I quite like it. It’s nice to feel noticed.”    
  
For a moment, he’s tempted to close the scant distance between them and fluster her further -- with his lips pressed to hers and his hand in all the right places -- but he thinks better of it. This is a slow con, after all. Best to bide his time, lest he risk ending the game too quickly.   
  
They lapse into silence, left only with the unbearable heat of the room, the subtle, mostly incidental press of their bodies, and four uncontrollably racing hearts. 


End file.
